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Whyline
The problem: AI assistants now write a big share of our code, but the request behind each change lives in a chat that gets closed. Git keeps the code and loses the reason: git blame says who committed a line and when, never why it was written or whether it was meant to stay. So the AI's throwaway code (a mock "until the real API lands", a demo script, a feature flag) ships and stays, because nothing reminds anyone to delete it. And nobody can say which AI-written lines a person actually looked at. A story: Sara, a backend developer at a payments startup, finds a mock payment gateway in production. git blame says she committed it three weeks ago, and she has no idea whether it is safe to remove. The solution: Whyline remembers why, at the moment Bob writes the code. 1. When Bob edits a file, small scripts Bob runs automatically save the request and the exact lines. No AI call, no extra cost, about 0.2 seconds. 2. On commit, that record is saved in the git history, attached to the commit. Files are not touched, and the history travels with the code. 3. Temporary code gets a date to go, or goes once nothing uses it. When that happens it is ready to delete, and a pull request check can fail until it is gone. 4. Ask Bob "why is this line here?", "what can I delete?" or "what AI code has nobody changed?". Ask "remove the mock": Bob shows the proof, asks, and deletes only after your yes. Bob cannot edit the history itself. For Sara: Whyline shows her own request ("a mock gateway so checkout works until payments-v2 lands"), that payments-v2 has landed, and that nothing uses the mock any more. Bob removes it after she says yes. Proof, from real runs: In the demo shop, 49 of 96 lines are AI-written and 47 of those were never changed by a person. After payments-v2 merges, the check fails on the mock, and Bob removed it after approval in a recorded run. A public demo repository shows the check passing on one pull request and failing on another. 82 tests, a built-in self check that proves every check can fail, no dependencies, published on npm. Why it is different: Review tools look at a pull request after the fact and guess the intent. Whyline was there when Bob wrote the line and kept the request. And no other AI code tool tracks the temporary code an AI leaves behind until it is safe to delete. Limits: A saved request shows what was asked, not that the code is correct. A person with write access can still edit the history. Changes Bob makes through terminal commands are not recorded. Business model: The CLI is free. Teams pay for Whyline turned on for every developer and a record per release, for example $20 per repository per month
27 Sep 2026
